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The Planet? Or The Republican Party?

Do you want to save the planet? Or do you want to save the Republican Party? That is the key 2016 question. You can have only one. Take your pick.

One way to look at this race right now is, Trump has narrowed down the GOP space. That entire party is more to the right, and occupying less space. Bernie has enlarged the left space. There are more people rooting for him. A whole lot of young people. People who might carry the fire a few election cycles. A lot of them young and white.

What Bernie is doing right now is expand the Democratic base. And the positions that he is taking, a human being could actually debate and dialogue around it. How do you debate Trump? The only way to debate Trump would be if you also called him names. That would not make for a great democracy.

With Bernie, you can agree. You can disagree. I don't find myself disagreeing. For me it is more like, show me a path to victory. And show me some concrete proposals. Show me possibilities of implementation. As in, Bernie does touch me on several intellectual levels. He is opening up my mind.

When you have idealistic young people excited, I am going to pay some attention to you.

This race has become competitive. I always thought it would be because this is a US presidential election. It always has been, always will be competitive. You are only in for the most powerful office on the planet.

I am not taking sides myself. But I watch this election the way some people watch sports. I don't watch baseball. I do watch elections. Primarily in India. In the US I don't follow local or state elections.

The thing about inequality is there is this raging debate on the topic in Silicon Valley. A lot of super rich are part of that debate. And these are people almost totally disconnected from DC. They don't care for Sanders. Actually they feel Sanders does not fathom the depths of what is about to happen.

Used to be liberals did not like that label, and they stayed apologetic. I don't see Bernie apologizing. That is a good thing. The center itself has shifted more to the left.

the Republican Party has become so extreme in its rhetoric and policies that it poses a “serious danger to human survival.” ........ “It’s become what the respected conservative political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein call

‘a radical insurgency’ that has pretty much abandoned parliamentary politics.”

....... “ideologically extreme, scornful of facts and compromise, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” ...... “literally a serious danger to decent human survival” and cited Republicans' rejection of measures to deal with climate change, which he called a “looming environmental catastrophe.” ..... "I am not a believer," Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, said recently. "Unless somebody can prove something to me,

I believe there’s weather.

" ....... "What they are saying is, let's destroy the world. Is that worth voting against? Yeah" .......... GOP proposals would effectively raise taxes on lower-income Americans and reduce them for the wealthy. ....... In an ideal world, Chomsky might vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who Chomsky has called an "honest and committed New Dealer" who has “the best policies,” despite some criticisms. ...... Regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination, Chomsky told Al Jazeera he'd cast his general election vote "against the Republican candidate” because there may be dire consequences to a GOP victory.

Bernie Sanders keeps refusing to run the way that the pundits think he should -- that's what makes this primary so interesting and perhaps a turning point in American politics. ...... He even -- in an ad released earlier in the day -- dared to advocate that people who have spent their lives working might deserve the chance to relax and be grandparents at the end of the day. ..... In the last few days, we've seen folks such as Paul Krugman in the New York Times and Paul Starr in Politico patiently explain that Bernie is too far to the left to be president. It's like they're dumping water on the Wicked Witch of the West and waiting for her to shriek, "I'm melting!" But actually, he's just shrugging it off, like a duck. As Cuomo tried to get him to confess to his socialism, his team just tweeted out a list of "socialist" accomplishments: Social Security, the minimum wage, Medicare, the 40-hour workweek. ........

The Beltway polls don't quite get how much America has changed -- how unequal and desperate it's become.

...... In the D.C. world, "experience" is crucial. It doesn't matter what you believe -- it matters how much power you've exercised. Do your time, and you're in the club. ...... But, hey, experience isn't everything. If it was, we'd elect Dick Cheney to every possible office, because he's had the most experience of all. Instead, as Bernie pointed out, judgment is really more important. .......

why did she set up a wing of the State Department to spread fracking around the planet, for instance?

....... A leader is someone who figures out where the future is going, not someone who joins the party once it's underway. A canny politician, by contrast, is precisely someone who waits until it's safe and then runs up to lead the parade. ...... Our Earth is becoming hopelessly unequal (a report last week showed that

62 people owned more assets than the poorest 3.5 billion on the planet

Donald Trump has hit a new high in the race for the Republican nomination, according to a new CNN/ORC Poll, with more than 4-in-10 Republican voters nationwide now saying they back the billionaire. ..... Trump has topped the 40% mark for the first time in CNN/ORC polling, standing at 41%. That more than doubles the support of his nearest competitor, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who notches 19% support in the poll. No other candidate hit double-digits. ..... Trump's lead is clearly significant, however, and the poll finds him well ahead of the field among a range of GOP subgroups. He leads among both men and women, younger and older voters, white evangelicals, conservatives and both self-identified Republicans and independents who lean toward the party. ...... Among those holding degrees, 26% back Trump, 20% Cruz, and tea party supporters split 37% for Trump, 34% for Cruz. ..... (70% of Trump's supporters say they are locked in compared with 40% who back other candidates). ...... the prospect of a Trump candidacy generates more enthusiasm overall (40% of Republican voters say they would be enthusiastic about a Trump nomination) than the possibility of Cruz (25% enthusiastic) or Rubio (18% enthusiastic) at the head of the ticket. ....... Trump holds his widest advantage on handling the economy: 60% of GOP voters say Trump would best handle it .....

Trump has a 55% to 16% edge on handling illegal immigration.

..... Republican voters in the poll rated terrorism their most important issue in considering a candidate for president: 49% called it "extremely important," outpacing the share calling the economy, government spending or illegal immigration as central to their vote. ....... a broad swath of GOP voters (55%) say they feel completely unrepresented by the government in Washington, and among those voters, Trump holds a 47% to 19% lead over Cruz. ....... But Rubio and Cruz each hit 50% support when matched against Clinton, while Trump stalls at 47%. ...... a majority of registered voters (56%) now say they think Trump will win his party's nomination for president, and that rises to 68% among Republican voters

They believed our candidate, Panama's version of Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, was having fun because he was confident in his ability not just to win, but to govern. ..... Voters understood he was enjoying his electoral adventure because he was not cowed by his opposition nor intimidated by the job beyond the campaign.......Doubts about his lack of governing experience were overcome by his buoyant strength and self-assurance........ We won. Ricardo Martinelli was elected Panama's president. Though he found troubles down the road, he served from 2009 to 2014. .......